When she starts to cut, I watch the strands of dark wet hair drop to the ground, and I smile. I feel the heat of the hairdryer on my scalp and turn around to check on Kylan: he is sitting in the corner of the room, reading a magazine, looking bored.
She turns off the hairdryer. ‘Shall I take off the towel now?’ she asks.
I put my hands up, feeling the soft hair between my fingers. ‘Yes,’ I say.
She pulls the towel away. Behind it is a woman with blonde hair just above her shoulders, with a sweeping side fringe. I turn my head to the side. It is really her, as she would have been. I smile and she smiles back.
‘It’s perfect,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
Kylan doesn’t recognize me until I am standing right in front of him. ‘Wow, Mum,’ he says. ‘You look so different.’
I pay with Hector’s credit card, and as we leave the shop, I take Kylan’s arm. It is sunny outside, bright after the dim salon, and as we walk I feel light, free. I chatter away to Kylan about how lovely the neighbourhood is around here, how nice it would be to take one of those flats with a little balcony overlooking the street. I tell him I want to live in a brightly coloured building, with lots of sunlight. Kylan lets me talk.
I stop walking. Just ahead, I see him, the back of his head disappearing around the corner. He has the same broad shoulders, the same way of walking. He holds her hand: her blonde hair moving in the breeze, her skinny body shrouded in clothes that are too big for her. He pulls her around the corner and out of sight, and as they disappear she turns, looking back over her shoulder, her huge grey eyes so wide with fear that I hear myself cry out.
I let go of Kylan’s arm and find myself running. Rounding the bend, I see them, a little way ahead. He is dragging her along, muttering under his breath for her to hurry up. I lunge forward, grasping hold of her arm and pulling her backwards. He stops, startled, and for a split second he releases her hand. I pull her after me, but she won’t come. Pulling harder, I start to run, back the way I have come. ‘It’s all right,’ I say, ‘you’re safe now.’
After a few minutes, I feel someone catch hold of my arm. I wrench it free and keep going. Glancing behind me, I see it is Kylan and I shout at him to stop the man from following us. He calls something back, but I keep running down the street, panting, dodging people in the way. The girl is screaming now too, crying out. ‘It’s all right,’ I say again. ‘Don’t worry.’
Kylan catches up with me, taking hold of my arms.
‘Mum, stop, please!’ he says.
I try to pull away. ‘I can’t, Kylan, I need to get her to a safe place. He’s coming.’
A man in his mid-thirties with messy dark brown hair runs up to us, sweating.
‘Mum, just put the girl down,’ Kylan says.
‘We need to keep going.’
She is twisting her narrow body, stretching out her arms towards the man with the dark hair. ‘Daddy,’ she cries out.
‘Ssh,’ I say. ‘That’s not your daddy. I’ll take you home now.’
I reach down to stroke her hair, then stop. I am holding onto the arm of a little girl, with short brown hair, her cheeks bleary with tears. Kylan moves in and takes her.
‘Mum, what are you doing? She could have been hurt.’
He leads the little girl back to her father, who strokes her hair and kisses her forehead. His face is red as he swings around towards us.
‘You’re lucky I don’t call the police,’ he says.
‘I know, I’m very sorry. She’s not feeling herself,’ Kylan says.
Kylan turns to me.
‘Where is she?’ I ask.
‘Who?’
‘There was a blonde girl with grey eyes. She’s very thin.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says. He looks at the crowd that has formed, at all the people staring at me. ‘Let’s get you home.’
‘I can’t go home, Kylan,’ I say. ‘I need to find her.’ I look at the sea of faces, the open mouths and cupped hands, the whispers. ‘Where is she?’
Kylan puts his arm around me, leaning close to my ear. ‘Please, Mum,’ he says. ‘Let’s go back to my house.’
I look up at him. ‘She’s gone now,’ I say. ‘He’s got her again.’
*
We don’t speak on the way back. By the time we get back, the streets are dark: it is almost six o’clock. The people seem fervent, hurrying. We walk for what feels like hours, until finally we reach Kylan’s apartment.
As he’s opening the door, I reach out and squeeze his arm.
‘I’m sorry, Kylan,’ I say. ‘Please don’t be angry with me.’
Kylan looks back at me for a moment and he looks so desperately sad and tired.
‘I’m not, Mum,’ he says. ‘That little girl was just so frightened,’ he says. ‘Her father thought you were trying to take her.’
I stare at him. ‘I would never do that, Kylan,’ I say. ‘You know that. Don’t you?’
Kylan puts his hand over mine. ‘Yes,’ he says, then heads down the narrow hallway. I follow him up the stairs and into the warm apartment. He drops his keys onto the hall table and walks through into the kitchen. Katya is sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, her feet pulled up under her.
‘Hi,’ she says. Kylan walks over and kisses the top of her head. I look away. ‘Your hair looks nice, Mrs Bjornstad.’
I feel myself bristle at the name, putting my hand up to my hair. I had forgotten about it.
‘Did you have a nice day?’ she says.
Katya and Kylan exchange glances. ‘It was interesting,’ Kylan says. ‘We had a nice coffee this morning at that cafe.’
‘I think I might go to bed,’ I say. ‘I feel a bit ill.’
‘Don’t you want any supper?’ she asks.
‘I’m not hungry,’ I say. I turn to leave the room.
‘Night, Mum,’ Kylan says. ‘I hope you feel better soon.’
*
In the bedroom, I don’t get ready for bed.
I pace, imagining Kylan telling Katya what just happened with the little girl. I know what it must have looked like, and it will sound even worse. I saw Kylan’s face in the cafe when I tried to explain things to him. Of course he doesn’t want to see his father as anything but a good man.
I find a pad of paper and a pen on the bedside table. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I decide to write down everything I know.
I write the word
Elise
. I can’t remember a surname.
Below it,
Ballet. Studio. Wooden floors, smell of cleaner, mirrors along one side
.
It could be any ballet studio anywhere. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to see the outside of the building, but I can’t. It’s no use.
I try to remember where I lived. I had to get the bus there, but it wasn’t far. What was the name of the street? I think back to the car he drove that night. I feel the tightness of the red coat, the weight of my bag on my lap. The dark street leading away from the bus stop: did we turn left or right? I can’t remember. Then the burning taste of the alcohol on my tongue, the lights which wavered and began to blur through the windscreen.
Then I remember the photograph. I find it, and spread it out onto my knee. I know we were in the garden: I remember the tree and the shadow it threw over the back of the house. It was the biggest one on our street, towering above the others. I remember the coolness underneath it; the feel of rough bark underneath my hands, and along my back. The splinters of dark wood that would be left behind. I would lie on the lower branches for hours, looking up at the sunlight pressing down on the leaves higher up, making the edges glow.
Now I am running, up the patchy stretch of green and towards the back of the house. Dark red brick, with white shutters, and a tiled grey roof, covered with moss. My bedroom was on the second floor. I painted the walls with my dad, I remember listening to him hum under his breath as he worked. Turquoise paint. The tinny radio playing Motown. ‘River Deep, Mountain High’. Then I am lifted off the ground, holding my roller aloft, and he swings me round, pinching under my armpits. I scream for him to put me down, but I am laughing.
I see the front of the house now, the ivy that covered one side of the building. Ours was the only brick house on the street, and that made it special. All the others were wooden.
If there’s a fire,
I hear my dad say
, our house will be the only survivor.
Then the word comes to me, and before I have the chance to forget it, I write it on the piece of paper.
Hansgata
.
That is the name of the street, I’m almost sure of it.
Without waiting any longer, I pull my coat back on and slip into the corridor. I can hear the sound of a television coming from behind a closed door, and I walk slowly past. Picking up Kylan’s keys from the hall table, I open the front door.
It doesn’t take me long to find a taxi.
I say the name of the street, terrified that the driver will wrinkle his brow: that he will tell me such a place doesn’t exist. But he simply pulls away from the pavement.
As we move through the streets, I stare out of the window, looking for things I recognize. For a long time, there is nothing: it is too dark to see much. Then we pass a newsagent on the corner, and I can smell the damp rubber of the mat, see the lines of cigarette packets behind the counter.
We drive down a street lined with skinny, leafless trees, and a strange sensation passes through me, as if I am falling from a great height. This is it, I think, I recognize it. This is the street.
‘What number?’ the taxi driver says.
‘Fourteen,’ I answer, surprising myself.
I climb out and look up at the building. It’s smaller than I remember, but it is the same house. There are lights on in most of the windows, and I can see the flickering of a television screen behind the curtain in the front room. There is a path which runs through a small front garden, and I feel my mother grasp hold of my hand and pull me along it, towards the blue front door. I hear her complaining.
Come on, Elise.
I see my small hand, wrapped in her bigger one.
I stand in a tiled porch with a low seat on either side. I reach up to ring the doorbell, and see a hand with long red-painted fingernails. As I press it, the hand is mine again, the fingernails bitten to the quick.
I hear the familiar bell ring out, and panic. There are noises beyond and I begin to wonder what I will do if my mother or father opens the door. Quickly, I try to work out how old my father would be now. Seventy-seven, I think, as the hinges begin to creak.
Standing on the doorstep is a woman in her early thirties with dark brown hair and small neat pearl earrings.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks.
‘I’m looking for someone who used to live here, some time ago,’ I say.
‘Well, we’ve been here for six years,’ she says.
‘There was a man and a woman living here,’ I say, wishing I could remember their names. I grasp after anything else I know. ‘It was over twenty years ago.’
‘I don’t think I can help you,’ she says. She moves to close the door.
‘They’re my parents,’ I cry out, and the door stops moving. ‘I’ve lost touch with them, and I need to find them.’
She looks round the edge of the door at me. ‘Do you want to come in?’ she asks.
She turns around, and I follow her into the house, shutting the door behind me. The hallway is dim, the walls green, cluttered with kids’ shoes and school bags. As I walk through, I hear a girl’s laughter echo down the wide wooden staircase.
‘How many children do you have?’ I ask.
‘Three boys,’ she says, without turning around.
‘I have a son too,’ I say. ‘But he’s grown up now.’
I stop in the doorway of the kitchen. There’s a woman standing by the sink with her back to us, her long dark blonde hair falling over her shoulders. I watch her hands as she takes a plate from the water, washes it, and puts it on the draining board. She is looking out of the window, at the garden. As she begins to turn her head towards me, she is gone.
When I look up, the woman is watching me.
‘I grew up here,’ I say.
‘It’s a great house.’
‘Do you know anything about the people who lived here before you?’
‘Not much. They were an older couple, though. We did the sale through an agent so we didn’t find out much about them.’
‘Did you ever meet them?’
‘No,’ she says.
‘And you wouldn’t know where they moved on to?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. But you’re welcome to look around the house if you want to.’
‘I should probably be getting back,’ I say. ‘I’m staying with my son and I don’t want him to worry.’ The woman looks relieved. ‘Do you think I could maybe come back another day and have a look? I have a lot of memories in this house, and as I mentioned, I lost touch with my parents. It would mean a lot to me.’
‘If I’m here, I’m happy to let you look around,’ she says.
I follow her out of the kitchen and back through the hallway.
‘Thank you,’ I say, when we reach the doorway. ‘And thanks for answering my questions.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,’ she says. ‘I’m Lucy, by the way.’ She holds her hand out to me. ‘Elise,’ I say, taking it in mine.
*
In the taxi on the way back to Kylan’s, I try to think what I can do next. Maybe I can find the newspaper article my picture is from: it will be about a missing girl and not a car crash. I will take Kylan back to the valley, and we will look under the house. Then he will have to believe me.
I turn the key in the lock and walk into the hallway, dropping the key on the table.
A figure appears further down the corridor. I move closer and see it is Katya.
‘It’s all right, Kylan,’ she calls, ‘she’s here.’
I turn the corner into the kitchen and see Kylan on the phone.
‘She’s just walked in,’ he says into the receiver. ‘She looks fine.’ A pause. ‘I’ll let you know. Thanks, Dad.’
Kylan puts the phone back onto the hook.
‘We’ve been so worried, Mum,’ Kylan says. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I just popped out for a walk,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know?’ he says. ‘I came in to check on you, and you were gone.’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ I say.
‘I was about to phone the police,’ Kylan says.